Dear Friends,

what is Albert Einstein’s relativity formula paired with the colour code of Ultramarine doing in a post on Alphaville’s social media? Time travel and blue pigmentation? Lady Bright and Yves Klein? Of course both are synonyms for our albums “Afternoons in Utopia” from 1986 and “The Breathtaking Blue” from 1989 and both were for all intents and purposes expeditions in modern recording, not least for us.

The production of “Afternoons in Utopia” took us around the globe at the speed of light, accompanied by a multitude of intense encounters and with the acquaintance of a lot of totally crazy people. Many of them you can meet up with on that album. The other journey, the production of “The Breathtaking Blue” led us into the innermost part of our own first studio world, our ‘ivory tower’, as well as into the deep blue of our artist’s souls.

Change of scene: After the remastering of “Forever Young” was such a pleasant experience, we decided to continue right away with the next two albums. Though we knew, a lot more could be retrieved from the historical material, the search for the tapes was a bit more elaborate, as they were buried much deeper in the sands of time.

“Afternoons in Utopia” was created under turbulent circumstances and unfortunately the mastering didn’t get the attention it deserved back then. The album simply didn’t sound the way it could have and should have been both on vinyl and CD. So now we are incredibly happy that we were able to adjust this. We brought the sound back to life with today’s possibilities and a lot of love and patience.

The same applies to “The Breathtaking Blue”. However, there is something very special about this album. Our passionate endeavor to turn the entire album into a collection of short films called “Songlines” actually worked out in a wondrous way: A separate short film for each song shot by directors all across the world – a project ahead of its time, almost 35 years ago. Unfortunately, at the time the possibilities to realise it in a technically perfect way were limited. But now the sky was the limit! The treasure of the original 35mm film reels were finally raised and the tapes were meticulously restored and digitalized. Now, these gems can be watched in all their beauty. And compaired to the original release this is a completely new experience, amazing analogue film quality. We are happy and proud about the outcome of all the work that went into it. Again, it was about time to do all this. Enjoy!